Theresa Snyder

Theme from Swan Lake

Mom at 20 showing off her new suit

Our home was always full of music when I was growing up. As an adult it has continued to be such at my home.

I was raised on classical music. My mother dreamed of being an opera singer when she was younger. She was a soprano with a three octave range whose voice instructor insisted on telling the surgeon how to remove her tonsils without threatening her career.

Mother used to encourage her mother and father to take the rest of the family out for picnics on Sunday after church. She would rush home, with the promise to clean the house and do the ironing, if she could only listen to the Sunday opera broadcast on the radio in peace.

Sometimes reality gets in the way of dreams. Mother married and had a family, but she never lost her love of music.

To her way of thinking, a cup of tea, a piece of classical music and a long chat could solve any problem.

She loved the power of Beethoven and Bach, the playfulness of Mozart, the commanding voice of Mario Lanza or Caruso, and the playfulness of Jeanette McDonald.

By the time I was in my teens I could hum along with most classical pieces from heart, but never bothered to learn the composer’s names or the names of the compositions. When I left home and become a writer, I found myself listening to classical music. Unlike music with lyrics, it was not a distraction while I wrote. Later, when my mother passed away, I started to listen to the classical station on the radio. It brought back fond memories of her and our lives together.

I longed to have some of the pieces mother had. When I would hear one I recognized on the radio, I would often sit in the car until it was finished, even though that might mean I was late to work. I would write down the composer, take the information to the local music store and ask one of the staff to suggest the best recording of that piece.

I found out two of my favorites were Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov and Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky. Both of these pieces transport me into an almost ‘out of body’ experience. I can visualize the action. The storyteller of Scheherazade in the Arabian tent of the Sultan appears before me to weave her story and prolong her life. The swans effortlessly glide across the lake of my imagination in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake until confronted by the hunter.

And during both pieces I can hear the click of the spoon in mother’s cup as she stirs her tea and her soft voice smoothing the wrinkles out of my current problem. They call it ‘classical’ for a reason. It is timeless and oh so memorable.